At least, if it wasn’t real, it did support them, and as that is what sofas are supposed to do, this, by any test that mattered, was a real sofa.
The voice on the solar wind breathed to them again.
I hope you are comfortable, it said.
They nodded.
And I would like to congratulate you on the accuracy of your deductions.
Arthur quickly pointed out that he hadn’t deduced anything much himself, Trillian was the one. She had simply asked him along because he was interested in life, the Universe, and everything.
That is something in which I too am interested, breathed Hactar.
Well, said Arthur, we should have a chat about it sometime. Over a cup of tea.
There slowly materialized in front of them a small wooden table on which sat a silver teapot, a bone china milk jug, a bone china sugar bowl, and two bone china cups and saucers.
Arthur reached forward, but they were just a trick of the light. He leaned back on the sofa, which was an illusion his body was prepared to accept as comfortable.
Why, said Trillian, do you feel you have to destroy the Universe?
She found it a little difficult talking into nothingness, with nothing on which to focus. Hactar obviously noticed this. He chuckled a ghostly chuckle.
If it’s going to be that sort of session, he said, we may as well have the right sort of setting.